Background check may be inadequate

Published 7:00 pm, Saturday, May 7, 2005

A recent incident with a parent who had hoped to help coach his son's 9- and 10-year-old Conroe Area Youth Baseball team brings to light the importance of the checks.

John David Aguilar had hoped to help coach the Dodgers team, but after finding out league officials require all coaches and assistants to submit to a criminal background check that would uncover the fact that he is a registered sex offender, Aguilar approached the board, said league secretary Stacey Myrick.

"I had to keep bugging the team for their paperwork, and when I finally got it from the manager (Aguilar's) wasn't in there," Myrick said. "I told them he couldn't help out with the team unless we had that paperwork so we could do the background check. At that point, (Aguilar) came to the board and told us what was on his criminal record. We told him there was absolutely no way he could help out with coaching the team."

That was, however, after uniforms were handed out and team pictures were taken. Aguilar appears in the Dodgers' team picture as a coach.

"There had been no games by that time, and there had only been maybe two weeks of practices," Myrick said.

Aguilar, 46, pleaded guilty in 1995 to an indecency with a child - sexual contact in Jefferson County. His alleged victim was a 6-year-old female.

As part of that agreement, Aguilar received deferred adjudication, the terms of which included four years of community supervision and a requirement that he register as a sex offender for life, according to court records.

Once Aguilar successfully completed his probation, the conviction was erased from his criminal record, but the requirement to register as a sex offender still stands.

Aguilar claims the charge against him was bogus, filed by his ex-wife during a hostile divorce.

The president of CEO of the national PONY League, which sanctions the CAYB association, said national officials strongly suggest that local leagues do background checks on all potential coaches, assistant coaches, volunteers and umpires, however, those checks are not mandatory.

Abe Key said the national league has a private company that it recommends for the background check.

Those checks should focus on sex offenders, Key said.

"We only looking for sex offenders," Key said. "We should be looking at both local criminal records and sex offender registries."

The one and only thing CAYB checks for in its background checks are sex offenses, Myrick said. This is the first year the local league has required the checks for coaches and assistants.

League officials had a meeting with team parents Monday to discuss Aguilar's status with the team. The parents of all but one child on the team were present.

"Some parents on the team have actually asked us to let him coach," Myrick said. "We told them there was no way we could do that. We're not he to determine whether his situation happened or didn't. Our only concern is the safety of the children."

Several parents contacted by The Courier declined to speak publicly about Aguilar or the league's background check policy.

The league uses a private company to check the criminal backgrounds of its potential coaches. The search looks specifically for sex offenses, but there are a number of different options for organizations and individuals who want to look into someone's criminal history, and not all services are created equal.

The Montgomery County Sheriff's Department offers criminal background checks to the public. For $10, a citizen can have the Sheriff's Department run a check on anyone, but the check only shows charges originating in Montgomery County.

"It is only a local check of the county," said Sheriff's Department Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel. "It shows if they've been arrested in this county, booked into the jail or have any warrants."

The background check conducted by the Sheriff's Department would not have shown that Aguilar is a registered sex offender.

"If he wasn't handled for the sex offense in this county, it will not show up," McDaniel said.

However, a simple search of the Texas Department of Public Safety's free online sex offender database would have shown that Aguilar was a registered sex offender living in Conroe.

Though the online database does not contain Aguilar's photograph, it does show his current home address, date of birth and a physical description.

Even more information, including a photograph, could have been obtained for free by filing an open records request with the Montgomery County Sex Offender Compliance Unit, said Terry Bennette, who heads up the unit.

It is Bennette's responsibility to ensure that Aguilar updates his sex offender registry yearly.

Since he has been discharged from community supervision, there are no restrictions on Aguilar except that he must register.

"He is discharged, so there is no child safety zone that he has to abide by," Bennette said. "Unfortunately he can be around children."

Myrick said since he is a parent of a child on the team, there is no way the league can keep him from attending games and practices.

"We can control who our coaches are," she said. "We can't control who the parents are."

The DPS also offers a paid online service that allows organizations and citizens to search a statewide Criminal History Database. The service requires citizens to purchase credits, and each search requires one credit to be redeemed.

The online search returns statewide information on convictions, deferred adjudication and sex offender registries, according to the Web site. The information is provided to the DPS by courts and criminal justice agencies throughout Texas and includes information on felonies and class A and B misdemeanors.

There are also a number of private online services that will conduct background checks for a fee.

Background checks have become common among most youth sports leagues.

The South County YMCA conducts background checks on all coaches in it's youth sports programs, said Kris Wilson, sports director for the YMCA.

The background checks are conducted by the YMCA of Greater Houston Association headquarters in Houston and look for any convictions for assaultive or sexual offenses, said Trazanna Moreno, director of communications for the Greater Houston YMCA.

"We submit the information to the association and that comes back to us saying either this person is OK to coach or this person can't be a coach," Wilson said. "We don't know the reason."

Wilson said with 6,500 children between the ages of 3 and 15 taking part in youth sports programs at the South County YMCA each year, making sure coaches will be a positive influence and not endanger the children is the top priority.

"It's extremely rare that we get someone whose background check comes back that they can't coach," Wilson said. "We run five youth sport seasons a year and we get maybe one person a year." There are between 100 and 200 coaches each season.

The YMCA also does random re-tests during the season, and closely monitors anyone who is coaching a sport that they do not have a child playing.

"About 99 percent of our coaches are parents with a child on the team," Wilson said. "If we have someone who is not related to a player, we'll red flag them and monitor them closely, going out and observing them and talking to parents on the team."